The Flashlight of Your Attention

A friend told me that he recently caught himself sitting on the sidelines of his son’s soccer game, reading a book about being more present.

We both laughed at how ludicrous it is to spend time thinking about being present as opposed to actually being present.

Fortunately, this skill doesn’t require another book or app. It’s one of those simple, not easy things.

Attention has been likened to a flashlight. And we can learn to shine the light of our attention on different aspects of our experience. It’s a trainable skill.

By my estimation, there are four broad areas that make up our experience of consciousness: thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations, and what we call the external world, or our senses. That’s all I can find at any given moment.

And if you imagined these as four rooms of a house, we’re often like teenagers, holing ourselves up in one room, the room of thought, for the majority of our day.

You can imagine our ancestors didn’t have that luxury. They needed to rely on their senses. Smell, taste, and sight didn’t just add pleasantness to one’s experience. They were essential for survival.

I’m reminded of this whenever I’m on a walk-and-talk session and happen to look down and see a snake. All of a sudden, my senses are heightened. I’m still listening to my client, but now I’m examining every root and stick along the trail to determine if it’s another snake.

I’m not choosing to do this. It’s just a natural response to a potential threat. I couldn’t not do it.

It reminds me, oh yeah, I’m an animal. With instincts.

It’s been said that lost in thought is the human condition.

And it makes sense why. After all, most of us are fortunately relatively safe these days. We can afford to place less attention on what we see, smell, hear, taste, and feel. We don’t need to rely on our senses for survival like we used to.

Our days are also filled with devices constantly playing tug-of-war with our attention, keeping us locked in the mental realm, keeping our minds working.

So the fact that we spend most of our days, and thus our lives, hypnotized by thought isn’t evidence that we’re doing something wrong. It’s just a natural outcome of being human in the 21st century. And we need to learn tools to balance those forces a bit. 

And to be clear, we’re not out to vilify thought. Thought’s our superpower. We should have immense gratitude for it. We are not a big, strong, or fast species, but for better or worse, we dominate this planet largely because of our extraordinary cognitive abilities.

The problem, however, is twofold.

One, our minds are somewhat too good at identifying problems and finding solutions. We often end up self-flagellating endlessly for past mistakes, which leads to shame, and we scare the shit out of ourselves with an endless series of what-ifs.

When we factor in the human brain’s automatic negativity bias, the built-in inclination to pay more attention to threats, to ignore the 99 sheep and notice the one wolf, it’s understandable why being lost in thought can lead to an increase in fear and dread.

In fact, a study by Harvard psychologists Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert found that people’s minds wandered nearly 47% (an under-estimation in my opinion) of the time they were awake. And when their minds wandered, they were generally less happy.

Two, we don’t control thought. It just happens. It doesn’t require our permission. We’re like a captive audience.

The brain’s propensity to problem-solve is like a dog chewing on a bone. It can’t help but chew.

But luckily, sometimes in life there are no problems.

So while we don’t control every thought that arises, we can learn to have more control over our attention. We can shift the flashlight of our attention away from thought and onto other areas of our experience.

It’s as though we tell our brains, yeah, yeah, I know some bad shit is bound to happen, but let’s notice what else is here for a second.

A prompt I find helpful is, “Is thought needed right now?”

And sometimes thought is needed. We do have a problem to solve. We have a trip to plan. We gotta figure out what to make for dinner. We have to try to crack the code of figuring out how to watch our favorite sports team on any given night.

But a large percentage of the time, thought is not needed. We’re simply thinking out of habit.

In those moments, it’s helpful to have a choice. Some flexibility. To take a break from focusing on thought.

I would argue that training our attention to rest more in the body and the external world is directly correlated to less mental and emotional suffering.

I once heard a meditation teacher say that the feet are the safest place to rest our attention because they’re the farthest from the mind.

I think she is right. Having a predetermined place to rest our attention can be helpful, and the feet are a great spot for that, but we can also let life make that decision for us.

In almost anything we’re doing, there are certain aspects of our experience that naturally take center stage.

If we’re driving, it can be the foot on the pedal, the hands on the wheel, and the ass in the seat.

If we’re eating an orange, it can be the smell as we peel it, and the taste and texture of the fruit.

If we’re walking, we can feel our feet hitting the ground, one after the next. Maybe we even measure our breaths by our steps.

If we’re waking up in the morning, it can be the chorus of birds singing or the owl hooting outside.

If we’re washing our hands, we can actually watch the soap suds collect in the bottom of the sink. A weirdly satisfying experience when I think to notice it.

There’s always something. We just have to learn to stop taking it for granted.

I sometimes wonder if this is how babies experience the world when you see those moments of awe on their faces. With less cognitive static and more immersion.

They seem to do this naturally, but as our brains grow, we have to learn to be more intentional.

It seems counterintuitive, but it’s been said that the feeling in my pinky toe is equally as important as the next thought that arises.

We’ve learned to place so much importance on thought. We put it on a pedestal. And it should be.

But maybe we can put our senses up there with it.

There’s a truly versatile tool that helps to cultivate this skill. I wish I’d come up with it, but I didn’t.

Russ Harris developed it. It’s called ACE and he says it’s like dropping an anchor, out of the mind and into the senses. It acknowledges thoughts and feelings, then shifts to bodily sensations, and then engages with the world around us.

It can be used to ride out craving, anger, anxiety, depression, but it can also be used just in ordinary moments to strengthen our attentional flexibility.

I’ve modified the E a bit and added an S, which gives us two options: step up with our values or offer ourselves a little self-compassion.

Here’s how I like to think about it.

ACES

A: Acknowledge

Acknowledge the thoughts and feelings that are present. Welcome them. Tell them, Come on in. Stay as long as you like. Even if I didn’t invite you, you’re not a problem. Take the best seat in the house. Here’s some soup. You stay here, but I’m not gonna sit with you all day. I’ve got some other shit to check on.

C: Come Back

Come back to your body and your breath. Feel your hands full of nerve endings. Feel your feet touch the ground. Extend the out-breath. Maybe soften your face and smile with your eyes a bit.

E: Expand

Expand into your senses. Notice what’s happening around you. Dial into your primary senses of sight and sound. It’s been said that it’s impossible to truly listen and think at the same time. See if that’s true for you. Notice subtleties like the play of sunlight or the color purple somewhere in your surroundings.

S: Step Up or Self-Compassion

Here you have a choice.

If there’s an action to be taken, step up with your values. Ask yourself how you want to show up in this moment, despite what you’re thinking and despite what you’re feeling.

If this were the last memory the person you’re interacting with had of you, how would you want them to remember you?

Or, if there’s nothing that needs to be done, offer yourself some compassion. Recognize that you’re having a hard time, that you’re probably fighting some kind of battle, and that you didn’t ask for things to be this way.

You’re doing the best you can with it. Send yourself a little warmth and encouragement.

One Thing to Try

Pick a few areas throughout the week. It can be showering, eating, driving, or some other activity altogether.

Use ACES to practice moving the flashlight of your attention around a little bit throughout that experience.

Just try it once today. Then let the habit naturally spill into other areas of your life.